MTA walks back targets on East Side Access yet again, completion now not expected until 2023

The project to extend the Long Island Rail Road to Grand Central Terminal may not be completed until 2023 at a cost of $10.8 billion — or 14 years later than first planned and $6.5 billion over the initial budget estimate, officials revealed Monday.

The Federal Transit Administration recently completed a review of the troubled project and concluded the MTA wouldn't come close to meeting the oft-revised targeted budget and completion date, transit officials said at an authority committee meeting on Monday.

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The MTA now has pushed back the completion date and budget forecast for the East Side Access project at least four times in the last decade, with the most recent adjustment coming in just May 2012. The authority originally estimated the link would be ready for LIRR riders by 2009 at a cost of $4.3 billion, according to the state controller's office.

An outside consultant brought in by the MTA described the challenges associated with the massive undertaking, which represents the largest infrastructure project currently in the works in the United States.

The consultant, Rick Thorpe, said that in order for the project to get on track, its management needs to be strengthened through the creation of new executive positions and a steering committee that should be manned by top-level representatives from MTA headquarters, the MTA's capital construction division, the LIRR and Amtrak.

The MTA's capital construction company gave a more optimistic forecast than that of the feds in a document released at Monday's meeting. It projected the East Side Access work could be done in September 2020 or 2021 at a final cost ranging from $9.3 billion to $9.7 billion.

East Side Access will allow many Long Island commuters to exit trains at Grand Central, on Manhattan's east side, rather than at Pennsylvania Station, on the west side, thereby shortening daily treks.

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Approximately 160,000 daily riders are expected to use the east side link, which the MTA has said also will reduce crowding on the No. 7 subway line and free up space at Penn Station for Metro-North Railroad trains.

The East Side Access work completed to date includes creation of seven miles of tunnel and a massive cavern beneath Grand Central Terminal. Roughly 1.5 million cubic yards of muck — enough to fill 75,000 dump trucks — has been carted away on work trains bound for Queens.

Tunnels also had to be built beneath the Harold Interlocking in Queens — the busiest rail interlocking in the U.S. — without disrupting LIRR and Amtrak traffic, officials have said.

At first, the MTA's estimates were for work to be completed in 2009 at a price tag of $4.3 billion.

Then, in 2006, the MTA walked back the expected completion date to 2013 after it reached a funding agreement with the federal government.

In 2009, the MTA moved the goal posts again — the estimated cost was pegged at $7.32 billion, and the calendar year of 2016 was eyed as the finish line.

But in 2012, the authority adjusted the estimates yet again. That time projecting a cost of $8.24 billion and a completion date of August 2019 — closer to what federal authorities had been predicting for years.

Former MTA Chairman Joseph Lhota said then that previous MTA administrations had put forward unrealistic construction schedules and budgets.

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"The era of underestimating the cost of big projects is over," Lhota declared at the time. "We're going to be realistic about the cost and we're going to budget accordingly."